One Island or Two?

I was planning our Hawaii trip in late September and had some difficulties in choosing islands. Most travel guides suggest going to one (no matter which) and staying there for the entire week. But for us who are under tight budget and plan to go there more for seeing the elephant rather than having relaxing vacations, it's too luxury to spend all the time on one. In the end, Gang found a week-long package for Oahu and Big Island online and decided to take it, which means we will be spending three days on each of them with two days on flights. I can see we will have another very busy itinerary again this summer.

It's not the first time that we made our trips into races against time. Last summer we traveled intensely in Europe, and stopped by each city for only 1-2 days. Well they are tiny (and to a certain extent similar) cities, but still we were in such a hurry that I was hardly impressed by anything but the scorching sun in Rome and the long queue outside Uffizi. We re-traveled later by looking at photos, and figured out more stories about the places we'd been to, but it's not the same. Due to limitation on time and budgets, it's hard for us to take relaxing vacations and truly enjoy trips.

On the other hand, I don't know how many people do enjoy taking a 5-hour flight to find a beach to lie on for one week while they probably only need to drive an hour to reach a similar one. Traveling, says cynics, is to rush into places where local people are already bored of; and produces unnecessary carbon footprints, says environmentalists. So if you're not up to something special, the time and money spent on the journey may not get paid off. I guess people have different perceptions for traveling: if you just want to find a new place for relaxing, then anything there can be attractions as they will rid you of tiring day-to-day lives; if you are planning the trip as sightseeing and want to see as much as you can, then it's another story. Most of the former travelers choose to travel by themselves, flexibly booking hotels, choosing attractions and changing their itinerary; while the latter always join group sightseeing and asking tour guides to arrange everything for them.

I'm not sure which type of tourists I am, but I do wish in the future I can find a place and rest for a while, instead of hurrying from one scenery spot to another. This probably won't happen until we're settled down, and are relatively freed from life pressures. Anyway, it will be a nice picture to think about.

（Hawaii or California?)